


Sideways

by hubrisandwax



Series: Love and Want [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 12:44:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hubrisandwax/pseuds/hubrisandwax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>You know you love him like you know the lyrics to Zeppelin’s ‘Ramble On’ backwards and the sound of the Impala’s engine after she’s been driven for a hundred miles and the colour of a Kansas summer sky and the lines on your palms and the way he smells, like ozone and the earth after it rains.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sideways

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Citizen Cope song of the same name.
> 
> The first in a two part collection. This is from Dean's perspective - the second is from Cas's.

You know you love him.

You know you love him like you know the lyrics to Zeppelin’s ‘Ramble On’ backwards and the sound of the Impala’s engine after she’s been driven for a hundred miles and the colour of a Kansas summer sky and the lines on your palms and the way he smells, like ozone and the earth after it rains. It’s taken you four years, goddamn it, and for you lose him six times; once to an archangel, once to Lucifer, once to the Leviathan, once to Purgatory, and twice because of your own stupidity. 1560 days and 21 hours you’ve known him, and you know you’ve loved him for 1203 of those days. It’s just taken you this long to admit it.

You’ve tried to reason with your feelings. Tried to convince yourself that it is a passing phase, that the feelings will disappear. That one day you’ll be able to look at him and not want to seize his face in your hands and pull his mouth towards yours. He’s your best fucking friend – the only friend you’ve had who hasn’t been family or blood or Benny (who taught you the distinction between platonic and sexual love) – and an angel of the freakin’ lord and it scares you. Hell no, it fucking terrifies you. He pulled you from hell and rebelled against heaven and swallowed thousands of souls because of you, for you, and how many other individuals would do something like that for gutter-soul Dean, daddy’s little blunt instrument, torturer of countless souls? Your feelings are a gamble, one you haven’t been sure you’re willing to take. It’s not like losing a few hundred on poker or pool – it’s about losing the one person you actually have a chance with. Losing the one person that isn’t Sam who allows you to believe you have worth.

Nor have you wanted to sully the divine, tarnish something so pure with the guilt of your sins. You didn’t deserve to be saved, but you were anyway. Why should he face the consequences of your actions simply because he was the first to reach you in hell? You didn’t even earn his love; he offered it up to you and you consumed it, were greedy for it, abused it. How can you forgive yourself for that, now, in retrospect, when he looks upon you with nothing but undying loyalty and boundless trust? How can you give up something so addictive? All you’ve ever wanted is acceptance; he gave that to you along with so much more you never thought you could have. 

Yet everyone leaves; that’s not a new concept and he’s not exempt from it, but it makes you vulnerable. He’s left you plenty of times, just as you’ve left him, and it hurts no less each occasion. It’s a physical ache in your gut that no amount of codeine or alcohol or sex can heal, a sharp pain behind your ribs that smarts with every breath. Are you ready to accept that? You need him, you’ve needed him for a long time, but you also want him. Is that enough? You think it might be. You trust yourself, and that’s an enormous step. You want him even when he’s a little shit and fucking Pollyanna in a trench coat and when he looks at you like you like you’re the sun.

Regardless, now you understand your feelings, you can’t stop them. They bubble up and over and affect every action you make towards him. It’s in the casual touches, the assurance that he’s still physically there; the prayers every night to try and convince yourself that he still cares, even when you pretend to yourself that it’s for Sam. You’re only lying to yourself. For once, you’re trying to take as much for yourself as you demand for your brother

It happens one night after a particularly dangerous hunt. You almost lost him for a seventh time, almost lost yourself, and you’re laughing and high on adrenaline and the post-hunt euphoria as you stumble through the motel door, and it seems to make so much sense – feels so goddam right while he gazes at you with that intense blue gaze filled with so much emotion – to clasp at the lapels of his coat and pull him in to your personal space. He makes a tiny surprised oof as you greedily push your mouth against his and back him up against the door, Sam somewhere getting food. He stills for a moment, clearly taken aback, before his lips are pressing eagerly against yours and his hands are in your hair and everything is perfect for that one small moment suspended in time.

It will take work; it won’t be easy. Your life never is. But as long as you know you love him, that he loves you, for once in your life you recognize that things can get better. No one is beyond redemption, not even Dean Winchester.


End file.
